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Have you heard about the importance of using localization to help gain more traction for your business and to improve your SEO?
In addition to using localization in the content that you write for your website and blog, or for your social media outlets, you will also want to make sure you are on local listings.
You will find plenty of excellent benefits when it comes to placing your company on local online directories.
Let’s get a closer look at how these local listings can help your business so you can see just why it is such a good idea to start using them.
Advertising is essential if you want to have more customers come into your establishment. You should always be looking for ways that you can advertise your business, and local listings are an ideal fit for any company that has a brick and mortar component. You can put your business information in front of people who are actively looking for a business in your area that does exactly what you do. You have the potential to drastically increase your business, or at least your company’s exposure, when you are on local listings.
Of course, one of the best reasons to use local listings is because they will add another link to your site, in most cases, and they will help you to rise in the ranks on the search engine pages. Local listings are fantastic for helping to boost your search engine optimization.
Again, by adding the location, it aids people who are looking for businesses like yours in a certain geographic area, such as the Outer Banks. It helps with all your other SEO efforts, as well.
Having multiple links going to your site from multiple local listings provides you with quality links.
The search engines tend to give more credence to these types of links, just as they do with social media links. Together, they can help to boost your SEO ranking.
Have you had trouble getting reviews for your business?
Are you unsure of just where people should be leaving reviews?
You will find that many of the local listing directories will also have areas where the customers can leave reviews about the companies they do business with. You can even remind customers that they can leave a review for your business on those sites. While not everyone will, you can be sure that there will be some who want to let others know about the treat experience they had.
Of course, there will also be those who write negative reviews. It is the nature of the Internet. You need to be careful and make sure that you respond to those negative reviews quickly and responsibly. Do not engage negatively and argue with someone online. Respond to their review professionally, and see what you can do to make it right.
Also, make sure that what you do is transparent, so others can see the interaction. This will show them that you care about your customers.
One of the reasons companies today have trouble succeeding is because they cannot afford advertising, or they are advertising in the wrong locations. One of the great things about local directories is that adding your business name and information tends to be free. This gives you some great advertising and marketing benefits, and the only thing you have to spend is a bit of time.
Even if you do have a large marketing budget, it is still in your best interest to utilize local directories given the benefits they can offer.
Now that you know just how beneficial these listings can be for you, it is time that you started to put your business up on directories. You can find hundreds of different listing directories that you can add your business to, including local directories that cater to businesses right in your area, such as Outer Banks Concierge.
Be sure to put your business on some of the larger directories as well, as this can help you to get seen by more people.
Some of the most popular and effective of the larger directories include Google+, Facebook, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, and Angie’s List. Determine the directories that are right for your business, and then add your business to them.
Keep in mind that the local listings can include various types of information. You will want to make sure that you include and fill all the information when you are adding your business. The more information you include the better. You will want to include the name, address, phone number, and your website. In addition, you should include the hours or operation.
Some of the listings may also allow you to include the methods of payment that you are able to accept, as well as a description of your business, and even images. Some will also have customer reviews, such as you see on places like Yelp.
By providing as much information as possible, it gives improves your visibility when people are looking up companies like yours in your specific area. It provides them with the address, contact information, and everything they need to know. Doing this will also provide your business with some excellent SEO benefits.
Now that you see the benefits that local listings can offer for SEO, an in other areas, it is time that you got started in this field. It is easy to sign up for the local listings, and it will not cost you anything more than some time. Make sure you keep coming back and updating the listings for any large changes to your company, such as changing the phone number or changing the address.
Working with local listings, and staying on top of them, can be a fantastic boost that your business needs.
Essentially, they make it easier for Google to determine that your business is real and legitimate. In turn, Google then gives you a better ranking in search results, and your potential customers can find your site more easily.
For local listings to really help you convert leads to sales, though, you need to know how to effectively post your information.
If your information is accurate and posted effectively, your site will appear higher in SERP (search engine results page) rankings. If you’ve written effective, SEO-friendly content and meta content, then users will be even more likely to click on your site than other results.
Then, if you’ve implemented a good online marketing strategy, you should have the content, images, and media on your site to draw your leads in and convert them to customers.
For this to happen, though, you need to ensure that the information you post is accurate. It’s easy to get sloppy and make typos when you’re entering your information into multiple sites. It’s repetitive work, and it can be difficult to catch every small mistake if you’re doing it all by hand.
If you go the manual route, be sure to stay on top of proofreading every entry you make. Believe it or not, you can actually confuse Google by entering different info in different listings.
The search engine may read this as multiple companies instead of multiple listings for the same company, which can result in your SERP rank taking a big hit.
Duplicate listings provide another obstacle when driving traffic to your site and converting leads to sales. If you need to update your contact information on a listing (in the event that you move, change phone numbers, etc.), you may have some issues with your local listings.
Some sites make it easier than others to edit and update your information, while others make it a little bit too easy to accidentally duplicate your listing.
If your business ends up listed twice with conflicting information, it can confuse both search engines and potential customers. Likewise, listings with old information won’t help your search results and can actually hurt your rankings, as well.
If you make sure that your listings are always up to date, accurate, and that there are no duplications, then you’ll be able to get the most benefit from your local listings.
If all of that sounds like a lot of work, it’s because it is. Fortunately, though, you don’t have to manually enter your data into all of your local listing sites. Just list and manage your company info with Outer Banks Concierge, and you can have it automatically pushed to all of the biggest listing sites and data aggregators online.
And, if you need to make updates, just let Umbrella Consultants know, and those will be taken care of for you, too. You don’t have to spend hours and hours dealing with local listings to convert more leads to sales – just choose the right listing management service, and everything will be done for you.
Try Outer Banks Concierge's listing management service today and see how quickly you can get better results for your business.
Getting local citations (mentions of the name of your business, along with contact, website, and address information) is a great way to drive more meaningful traffic to your website.
In fact, citations can actually drive more traffic to your site in a couple of different ways.
First, people who are actively searching the listings and data aggregators that cite you will find your contact information.
Second, and better yet, Google and Bing both use citations to determine which sites get the highest ranks on their SERPs (search engine results pages).
Of course, you already know that citations are good for your search engine optimization (SEO). You’re wondering how you can get more citations and increase your rankings and traffic.
Here are a few ways to get more citations for your business and your site.
First of all, you probably don’t have a lot of extra time on your hands, right? So the idea of manually entering your business’ information into big data aggregators’ sites and business listings probably sounds like a pretty terrible chore.
Well, yes, it is, but you don’t have to do it yourself.
With a listings management service like the one offered by Umbrella Local in partnership with Outer Banks Concierge, you can get it all done for you. Just supply them with your company’s name and information, and they’ll push that info to the largest, most trusted business listings, directories, and aggregators online.
The best part about a service like this is how easily you can manage your listings. Not only can you get your information pushed to all of those sites and apps with just one step, but you can also make changes to your company’s information whenever you want.
Then, Umbrella Local Listing Management Service will make all of your updates for you. It’s simple, and it could be the easiest way around to drive more traffic to your site.
In addition to automatically getting citations on large listings and aggregator sites, though, you can also reach out to local blogs and online publications that are relevant to your business.
If you don’t already have one or more publications in mind, search for “[your area] [your industry] blog.” Then you can send them information about your business. If they have local business listings, you can get added to these, or you could even get your citation in a blog post or article.
Industry blogs and online magazines are often given more weight by local search engines than other sites, so this kind of citation can be hugely beneficial to bumping you up a few places in search rankings.
Expert citations and features aren’t just great for SEO, though – they’re also great for building up your reputation in your industry.
Between automated listing management through a service provider like Umbrella Local in partnership with Outer Banks Concierge and reaching out to relevant local blogs and publications, you can do a lot to get more traffic, more leads, and more conversions for your business.
Speak with one of our Umbrella Local consultants and see how we can help makes a difference in your Local Citation Marketing Strategy.
If you’ve been paying attention to changes and trends in SEO (search engine optimization) lately, you’ve probably noticed people talking about local search citations. Unless you’re already familiar with local citations in the context of SEO and business, this term is probably somewhat confusing.
To understand why local search citations are important to your business, you first have to understand what citations are and how they work.
Whenever your business’ name is mentioned on a website that’s not affiliated with yours, even when there is no link back to your website, that’s a citation. If that mention is associated with your area or location, then it’s considered a local citation.
Examples of local citations can include the Yellow Pages, Yelp, and other business listings, data aggregators, and directories.
Now, you may be wondering how citations like these can help your business, especially if they don’t necessarily include a back link to your website. Well, with or without those links, local citations are incredibly good for SEO. Basically, if two websites for similar companies have roughly the same keyword density, the same traffic, and the same quality content, both Google and Bing will favor the one that has more local citations on other sites.
So, the more citations you have, the higher you can rise in search results rankings.
If you’re neck-and-neck with one of your competitors for traffic, leads, and customer conversions, a boost in local citations could be all you need to get an edge on them.
With most business listings and data aggregators, you’ll have to push your listing to them to get a citation. Doing this manually can be incredibly time consuming, but you might do it yourself because it’s worth it to you to get a head start on your competition and to drive more traffic to your site.
However, what happens when you move locations? What if you need to change or add a phone number? Suddenly, you’re looking at doing all that work over again.
Why? Because local citations really only work in your favor if all of the data about your company is accurate. This is where good local citation management comes in.
When you find a good local listings management provider, you don’t actually have to do any of your own work on your local citations. Instead, you can just give them your information, and they will automatically push it to all of the appropriate sites and listings for you.
Then, when you need to update your info, you can just let them know, and they’ll manage all of your updates for you.
Umbrella Consultants now offers an easy way to control all of your business listings and local citations in one place. You don’t have to manually enter your company info over and over again, and if you need to make changes, you can do it once and trust Umbrella Local in partnership with Outer Banks Concierge to handle the rest.
Get an edge on your competition with Umbrella Consultants and local citations for your company.
You’ve taken the time and energy to create an attractive and functional website for your company. You’ve studied SEO tricks and tips, and you know to use keywords naturally and never to sacrifice quality content for keyword stuffing.
You should also know that local citations are incredibly important to your search engine optimization, too, and that your SEO job isn’t done when you finish creating your website.
Local citations on data aggregator sites and business listings can help push you up in the ranks of SERPs (search engine results pages) for both Google and Bing. With the right citations, you can get a real jump on your competition, and here’s why…
Google and Bing both use a number of algorithms to determine the ranking on their search results. While location-based searches have long been a big factor in SERP rankings, mobile technology is making location even more important.
Why?
Because the developers at Google and Bing understand that people who are searching for businesses on their smartphones and tablets often do so while they’re on the go. They’re searching for the services and products they need in a very specific area because they’re already headed out the door or are in the car looking for the closest place where they can finish running their errands.
As a result, when someone in your area performs a search for a keyword associated with your business, the search engine is going to find your website.
How high your site appears on the SERPs, though, depends on how many local citations the search engine hit on when it found your site.
So, if you appear in numerous business listings in the area, you’re going to show up a good deal higher in the ranks than you would if you weren’t listed.
When you list your business name, URL, physical address, and phone number with large business listings online, you’re going to see more traffic on your site.
When you look at your analytics tools, you’ll probably notice that a lot of that traffic is coming from mobile devices.
If you have a mobile-friendly site that shows people why they should visit your business and why they should choose your products or services, you’re very likely going to notice an increase in sales and physical traffic to your location. That’s because people searching for the products and services you offer while they’re in your area are going to find you before they find other businesses.
Of course, to get the benefits of local citations, you’re going to need to ensure that all of your data is accurate and that it’s pushed to the biggest listings possible. That’s where you can benefit from a service that does it all for you.
Umbrella Consultants has developed a service that completely automates your local citations and listings.
You just need to supply Umbrella Local partnered with Outer Banks Concierge with your business info, and they’ll push it to all of the most important listings to get you better search results rankings. Then, if you need to make changes, update the info in your account and your listings will be updated for you. It’s simple, easy, and great for driving more business your way.
Try it today and see how much more traffic you can get.
Effective SEO today goes far beyond the old days of keyword optimization. While keywords are still important, as they’re the basis for all Google and Bing searches, they aren’t the only SEO factor driving traffic to your site. In fact, it can be argued that external citations are just as important as internal keyword use.
When you Google your business, where does it show up in the results page? If it’s not first, you have an SEO problem. Basically, this shows that your business doesn’t have enough credibility online to allow Google to place it first in the ranks. Simply getting local citations with your business’ name, address, and phone number on a few data aggregators, business listings, and/or review sites could solve this problem.
Not only that, but local listings can also increase your search results rankings when people search for keywords related to your business. This is basically because your listings give you more credibility with Google and Bing.
Think of it this way, when you see a company you’ve never heard of before offering great prices on a service you want, what are you going to do? Well, if you’re like most people today, you’re going to Google them. If they don’t have any online presence or a weak presence, you’re probably going to assume that the deal is too good to be true and move on to a seller with more of a presence.
The same thing happens with Google and Bing’s search algorithms. If they see you represented on multiple trusted listings, then you’re going to get a higher ranking in search results. And, as we all know, the higher you are in the ranks, the more likely people are to click on your site.
At the same time, just as in the example above, your customers will see your name and address in listing and review sites they trust. As a result, they’ll start to become more familiar with your name and more trusting of you as a business, and they’ll be more likely to click on your site instead of your competition.
Local listings also do a lot for local-specific searches, especially for mobile searches. When users search for a type of business, product, or service on their mobile devices, search engines use their location to make the best, most convenient recommendations.
They don’t just base their results rankings on location and proximity, though. Your competition might be right next door to a customer looking for your products or services, but if you have more local listings, your business will likely show up first in the search results.
Getting local citations and listings for your business can be tedious and time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be.
With Umbrella Local, you can sign up for your business' listing management service that allows you to enter your information once and have it pushed to all of the major listing sites and aggregators to get you more traffic and better search results rankings. Try it out and see what local listings can do for your business.
